


nothing like it was in my room

by botwins



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: M/M, mac is hopelessly in love with dennis despite the fact he can't feel anything, mentions of dennis' mental state, slight dee/dennis, some internalized homophobia, some mention of parental abuse (background), this is way too somber for it's always sunny fic but hey it's a comedy that's secretly a tragedy so
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-11
Updated: 2014-03-11
Packaged: 2018-01-15 10:06:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1301020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/botwins/pseuds/botwins
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Oh," Mac says.</p>
            </blockquote>





	nothing like it was in my room

Mac’s mouth tastes like beer. Not the good kind, the old stuff they leave in the bar that Charlie fills the bleach containers with, the kind of dark, slippery sort of beer that doesn’t really foam anymore, or foam well, at least. 

Dee is gone, and with her tagged Charlie and Frank, off on some weird scheme that he hadn’t really grasped the first time she’d explained it, and not later, when Dennis ranted about it for like an hour in their apartment. Dennis’ feet had been kicked up, resting on their coffee table, and Mac had been slouching next to him. He’d watched Dennis’ sneakers, thought about how when they were in high school, he’d gone to the Reynolds’ once and the maid yelled at him to take his shoes off, to not drag dirt on the carpet. His shoes hadn’t been dirty then, though Dennis’ are now; Dee and Charlie stole his car on their way out.

Charlie and Dee’s plans never work. If they crash Dennis’ car he’ll kill them.

"Wanna watch a movie?" Mac asks. The beer in his hand now, different from the ones before, is lukewarm and sticks to the edges of his fingers like flypaper.

Dennis is kind of mumbling, short and slick. “They’ll regret it. If Dee lets Charlie even touch the wheel, she will wish-” He pauses. “What movie?”

He’s not really in the mood to bitch about movies tonight. He wants to watch something scary, maybe, Dennis is notoriously a huge pussy about slasher flicks despite liking the gore. He’ll move closer to Mac, his hands shaking quick like knots, and Mac will- he’ll-

Predator’s still a sore subject. Instead, Mac says, “Whatever you want, bro, I don’t really give a shit.” Dennis nods.

They pick 21 Jump Street. Dennis declares it stupid enough to watch while drunk which is good because he’s already halfway to wasted, the beers kicking in about when Dennis reaches over to pop open the DVD player and Mac gets a front-row seat to the curve of his ass in those jeans.

-

He falls asleep and wakes up to Dennis quiet against his thigh, his mouth slightly open, eyes closed.

"Oh," Mac says, out loud to no one. He tries to stay awake but falls back asleep. This time he dreams of opening the bar in the morning, Dee and Charlie crashing the car through the doors before he can, Frank not far behind them.

-

He’s still not totally comfortable with- whatever. Who he is, the words Dee had used, seem out of place and like shit a therapist would say. He doesn’t want to think about the problem like that, in clinical terms like a hospital bed folded up in some decrepit old room. And it is. A problem. Mac knows that Dennis doesn’t- that Dennis couldn’t, even if he did think about it, even if sometimes Dennis will lean into Mac while he laughs, soft and nice. Dennis just isn’t one of those people. Dee once said where everyone else has a heart, Dennis has a second dick. It was mean, but he thinks about it a lot still, because it had sounded true when Dee said it, like a fact of life or the universe or something. Dee would know, right? Mac doesn’t like thinking anyone knows Dennis better than he does, but Dee’s been there since the beginning of time, a steady, consistent factor of Dennis’ heart-dick, directly influential and solid. Mac’s been there for a while too, though he doesn’t know if he can ever count himself as a part of Dennis, despite wanting to. Dennis is a part of him, probably. He lives in the room across the apartment. Some nights Mac goes and sits outside Dennis’ door, listening for his breathing, the rustle of sheets. A sign.

-

They fight a lot, in between dinners and the bar and the rest of the gang interfering. It’s not angry, usually, except in a surface sort of way- more easy, practiced, a routine to slip into. Mac isn’t used to fighting without true anger. When he was a kid, his parents would yell, and their fights were scary, loud. He would hide under his bed or go to Charlie’s. Dennis’ parents were worse. Weird now, thinking about it- he vaguely remembers the fringe presence of Frank, one or two thrown artifacts, Dennis dragging him upstairs. “Ignore them,” he said a lot, back then, “Fucking retards.” Dee was just as unaffected. She called their mom a bitch. Both of them acted like Frank didn’t exist when Mac knew them, avoided him when he was home on business trips. Sometimes he thinks maybe Dennis’ parents are the reason he doesn’t feel things all the time, or the normal things, but he doesn’t know for sure. Would Dennis have been wrong anyway? Were people just born like that?

Science is for fucking pussies though, same with psychology. If Dee managed to major in it for like three years, it can’t be a real thing, or that hard. Still, he thinks about it sometimes, doing an experiment on Dennis. Just to find out. Just to see. He pictures Dennis strapped down on a table, hands restrained, not able to move anything but his mouth, not able to say anything but Mac, please. In his dreams, it’s usually the other way around. He likes thinking of Dennis hovering over him, behind him; one hand pressed to the nape of Mac’s neck. But he can make an exception.

-

"Miss me?" Dennis asks when he comes back from destroying Dee’s plan. He’s swinging his keys on his finger, which indicates he got his car back, there’s a smirk on his face, which indicates he was successful in ruining whatever he set out to ruin.

"Sure," Mac says like he usually does when Dennis asks shit like that. "Did you make Dee cry?"

Dennis shakes his head, hangs the keys up on the hook by the door. “Swing and a miss,” he says, “She’s getting stronger. Frank, on the other hand- his mind is only getting feebler as the years go by. If he thinks I’m paying shit for a nursing home, he is severely mistaken.”

"Let him live on the streets," Mac suggests. He’s heard the spiel about Frank’s oldness and living situation like a billion times before. Dennis brings it up basically every time he has to interact with Frank for more than five minutes- like anyone cares, like Frank will even make it to a nursing home. "He’s Rambo, remember?"

"He wishes he was Rambo," Dennis says, but he grins anyway, falls onto the couch like normal.

"What’d you wanna do tonight?" Mac asks. "The bar?"

"Fuck the bar," Dennis says. "We need to give those guys a little healing time. The Golden God does not tread lightly when he has been wronged, Mac. It may take weeks, even months, for them to be fully recovered from my vengeance."

Mac went out and picked up a different brand of beer before Dennis came back, one that wasn’t stolen from the bar or that had labels peeling off in long, curling strips. He’d figured they might- or at least, he’d hoped-

"I guess we can just hang out and drink," Mac says. Dennis nods. It doesn’t take long for Mac to pull out a few beers, as many as he can on his own, and set them up on the coffee table before he sits next to Dennis, closer than he probably should be.

-

They used to go to Charlie’s to drink, or sometimes the parking lot of the school at night. Charlie’s mom wasn’t home a lot, and if she was, she’d be in her room or the kitchen, calling down to them, asking about snacks or sodas. Charlie got high most of the time, Dee would be there but not really paying attention. Dennis and Mac would play drinking games. Watch stupid movies.

Once when Charlie passed out and Dee went home because Dennis had so severely pissed her off, they drank so much that Dennis leaned into Mac’s face, touched his cheeks with the tips of his fingers.

"Mac," Dennis had said, quiet and reverent.

"Yeah?" He’d asked. He wanted to do something, move in, maybe, or lay his face on the cool skin of Dennis’ neck, shoulder. Pressed together that tightly, Dennis was unfairly attractive, pretty and smooth, and his eyelashes were brushing Mac’s skin- that’s how close they were, or not close enough. Dennis had kissed him then, slow and easy. Across the room, Charlie jolted, almost got up, didn’t, fell back asleep. Mac didn’t know what to do with his hands. He left them at his sides, but wondered later, and still did, if that was the wrong move, if maybe he should’ve touched more of Dennis; the curve of his arm, the long lines of his back.

"Our secret," Dennis said after he pulled away.

"Yeah," Mac said.

-

He’s not gay. He’s not anything.

"If you go to hell, it won’t be because you like sucking dick, Mac," Dennis tells him when he voices this thought. "It’ll be for a multitude of other reasons."

"Reassuring, thank you," Mac says. From where he’s sitting he can see the cross on his wall in his room, the door ajar, the rest of the wall very empty. He’s had four beers, combined with the other four he downed earlier when Dennis had left. Dennis’ thigh is against his own, and Mac’s brain is fuzzy, all his thoughts tangled up like little ropes.

"Come on," Dennis laughs, "Be serious. Do you think I’m going to hell?"

Mac looks at him for a long time. He wants to say yes. The yes is at the tip of his tongue.

"No," Mac says instead.

"There you go, bro," Dennis says. "Now, come on."

"Come on what?" Mac is warm, burning up where Dennis touches him. Dennis grins, leans in close to Mac’s face, just like all those years ago, in Charlie’s dingy basement with the lights on.

"Well, now you have no reason to not suck my dick. So get to it."

Dennis’ fingers are in his hair. It feels good, nice, like they’re supposed to be there. His thoughts untangle, solidify, anchored by the weight of Dennis’ hands. He can feel the cross at his back: a constant reminder, mocking.

-

Later Mac dreams of his dad in jail, plotting of ways to kill him, his hands angry where they are wrapped around the thick gray bars. When he wakes up, Dennis is knocked out beside him. His head against Mac’s shoulder is a comforting presence, and he can feel himself drifting back to sleep. Dennis’ cheeks are still flushed, a little.

"Oh," Mac says.


End file.
